Living in the Purim Time

The rav at our shul here in Israel said something last year that I haven’t been able to get out of my head & have been thinking about ever since. He was talking about what it means to get to the point where one doesn’t know the difference between “Bless Mordecai” & “Curse Haman”. How is it possible not to know such a thing? He said that if one starts in Nisan, as the Torah does, then Pesah is the first holyday of the year & Purim is the last. Pesah is very clear. Everything is laid down very precisely. How much to drink, how much to eat, what’s OK, what’s not OK, etc. Pesah is all black-and-white, very clear, with exact definitions. But as the year wears on & approaches its end, one’ perspective changes. Older and (hopefully) wiser, we realize that the world is not so black-and-white as it first seemed, that there’s an awful lot of grey out there, that things are not so clear & precise, that it’s not so clearcut knowing who to bless & who to curse, and what constitutes blessings & curses. This is Purim. And when you come to this realization, you need a drink!

The problem, as I said to our rav, is that we have a whole year to wind down from Pesah to Purim but less than a month to make the (sharp) transition from Purim to Pesah. And the other problem is that some of us, i.e. me, are living in the Purim time all year ’round. Everything is (shades of) grey.

Looking forward to some Purim grog.